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TORONTO — A heartbreaking love story ended in a tragic double suicide early Tuesday as an elderly couple plunged 18 stories to their deaths at an Etobicoke highrise.
Neighbours claim the woman, 84, was tired of living in severe pain and her ailing husband, 89, refused to live without her, so together they jumped from the balcony of their penthouse apartment at 63 Widdicombe Hill Blvd.
“It’s a shock,” one woman, who lives down the hall from the couple and would not give her name, said Tuesday of the suicide pact.
“They were just the most lovely couple on the planet,” she added, wiping tears from her eyes.
When she walked outside in the morning through the lobby — which is well decorated for Halloween — and saw the bodies near the bushes next to the front doors, she initially wondered if it was a Halloween prank.
“I thought it was some sort of sick zombie joke,” the woman said. “I didn’t think it was real.”
She soon realized it was the couple who had lived in the highrise for some 20 years.
Toronto Police say officers responded to a 911 call at 7:50 a.m. and found the lifeless bodies of the seniors on the front lawn of the building northwest of Kipling and Eglinton Aves.
“At this point, investigators do not believe the deaths area suspicious,” Const. Sarah Diamond said shortly after the grisly discovery.
“It’s being treated as a double suicide,” she said, explaining suicide notes were found in the couple’s 18th-floor apartment.
The names of the deceased were not officially released.
However, those who knew the couple identified them as Vladimir Fiser and Marika Ferber.
“They were best friends and they were deeply in love,” the senior who lives down the hall said of her neighbours.
She and others said the Vladimir and his first wife had been lifelong friends with Marika and her first husband.
And when they lost their spouses to cancer, the widower and widow married.
“(Marika) was in a lot of pain for a long time and she was very unhappy,” the neighbour said.
Many residents said Marika was once a ballerina and taught ballet later in life. But in recent years she suffered from excruciating chronic back and leg pain and needed a walker or a wheelchair to get around.
And Vladimir, a retired psychology professor, was dealing with heart troubles, according to residents.
But he still trekked every day to a clinic with his wife so she could get injections to help relieve pain.
An older woman, who also refused to give her name, said she visited the couple last week and they seemed to be managing.
“They were truly in love,” she said. “But they were tired of all the pain.”
Despite their struggles, the neighbour said she never imagined the couple might resort to such drastic measures.
The coroner’s office is investigating the double suicide.
chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca

Etobicoke seniors in double suicide heartbreak

A heartbreaking love story ended in a tragic double suicide early Tuesday as an elderly couple plunged 18 stories to their deaths at an Etobicoke highrise.
Neighbours claim the woman, 84, was tired of living in severe pain and her ailing husband, 89, refused to live without her, so together they jumped from the balcony of their penthouse apartment at 63 Widdicombe Hill Blvd.
“It’s a shock,” one woman, who lives down the hall from the couple and would not give her name, said Tuesday of the suicide pact.